The next knot in my string of technological woes lately is the problems that I’ve been having with my WiFi routers. I just can’t seem to ever setup something reliable!
The problems with my routers began a few years ago with some old, crappy, blue router that I actually can’t remember where I got it or who the manufacturer was. I quickly graduated to a Linksys WRT54G. This router was “ok” but every few days it would “lock up”. The internal network would remain perfectly active while the connection to the Internet was severed.
I dealt with this for a little over a year – I think. And when I decided to upgrade to something more reliable, I went with an Airport Extreme. I thought I’d get the “Apple experience” and also take advantage of the Airport’s ability to share USB hard drives with everyone on the network. But I suppose it wasn’t meant to be so.
The Airport Extreme drops the WiFi connection altogether and the SSID disappears from the list on my Macintosh. The USB hard drive that I have is, seemingly, incompatible with the Airport Extreme. I bought this hard drive for this very reason.
I just don’t think I’m supposed to have a reliable WiFi connection.
October 22, 2007 at 6:00pm EST: Why I included the time in this update stamp I may never know – but I’m excited to let you all know that I have solved the issue with my USB Hard Drive not connecting to my Airport Extreme; it was the USB cable. The cable itself must have been bad because it got to the point where the drive wouldn’t even mount to my computer directly.
Thanks to my friend Larry Halff for helping me troubleshoot the problem which led me to believe it was the cable. Often times it is the simplest of reasons why something is happening. Thanks!
I purchased an Airport Extreme about a month and half ago. Although I’m not having the dropped WiFi connection you’re having, I did have issues setting it up.
I thought it was going to be a simple “plug in the cable and start surfing” deal but it ended up being an all night thing. All the computers in the house were seeing the router but for some reason, the router was not connecting to the internet. To make a long story short, a simple power cycle of the modem was the issue. Arrghh!
I also had issues setting up my slingbox with this thing. By default, the Extreme uses 10.0.x.x address while the slingbox uses the standard 192.168.x.x. In order for the slingbox to work with the router, you need to use the 192.168.x.x. address on the Extreme.
Anyways, after all that, everything is finally playing nice with each other.
I hope you find the cause of your WiFi issues. Could the wireless card on your Mac be the issue?
Edwin: I am not sure what the problem is yet – but I’m definitely not giving up. I am going to do a lot more trouble shooting when I can – to see which part of my network might be the cause of this issue because I am not so sure it is the router anymore.
Is this where I say “Meraki“, “Meraki“, “Meraki“?
No?
But seriously, Meraki!
Lachlan: See, I would take your recommendation if you just used periods at the end of your paragraphs!!
But seriously, Meraki? How did I miss this post on your blog? I’ll look into it for sure!
You probably missed it because it was so unusual! I’ve posted 3 times in the last week, though, so maybe that’s changing. 2 on Meraki, as linked above
It’s a grand experiment and probably doomed to initial failure, but I think it’s worth doing and if we persevere, we’ll get it right
As for the periods… Well, you know what I think. They annoy me as superfluous in a system where the end of the paragraph is defined by a tag. Convince me they’re necessary and I’ll start using them again
Yes, Merakis are good! (although I should admit I stumbled upon this article searching for “problems with Meraki” but it’s nothing serious). But seriously, dead easy to set up – you can just plug em in and throw em in a corner anywhere and it’ll just work. I’m just starting work on putting together a plan to promote a city-wide wifi mesh network in Canberra
Hello Colin,
I have the same problem with the Airport Extreme, it’s driving me nuts.
The WiFi drops and the SSID disappears from the list on my macbook and also iPhone.
So I think the problem is in the router.
I have to unplug/plug the power cable of the router to get the SSID back in the list.
I already tried several different channels, but it won’t help…
At a certain time the Wifi drops and disappears.
Have you found a solution to this annoying problem?
Thanks,
Lucas
Lucas: Are you using 10.4.x ? If so, you may want to consider jumping into Leopard. Since upgrading to Leopard, and ensuring that my router is running the latest firmware available from Apple, I have no had this issue in months.